Page 12 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

And when he took a step back, putting more distance between us, I knew I was done. With him, with all of it. I couldn’t do this anymore. This thing between us was eating me alive. He’d finally kissed me and now he was trying to take it back.

I was done.

“Ruby . . .”

“Please leave.”

His jaw ticked, then his gaze shuttered and he turned . . . and walked away.

CHAPTER FOUR

Neco

“Mom?” I walked in the front door, checking out the living room first.

I hated this house. Fucking loathed it with everything inside me. My mother refused to move. In the end, I’d bought it for her, after I’d offered to buy her something else, somewhere else, but she wouldn’t budge. I didn’t get it, didn’t think I ever would. This place was the backdrop to every ugly memory I had, the center of all the rage and humiliation and pain I’d felt as a kid growing up.

“Down here, baby,” she called.

Fuck, her voice already sounded slurred and it was only 10 a.m.

I walked down the hall to the small kitchen. It was the sunniest room in the place, always warm. I’d had it redone a year and a half ago, not that she really used it that much. I’d needed to wipe this place clean any way I could. So every room in this house had been painted, had new carpet put down, new furniture, curtains, the lot. It was the only way I could make myself walk through that front door and not tear the place apart with my bare hands.

She was sitting at the table, so damn small and pale. As a kid, I thought she looked like a fairy from one of the books she’d read me. She was so damn tiny, with those bright green eyes and all that wavy blond hair. At only five-foot-two, I towered over her, had done since I was twelve. I could only assume I got my height from the asshole who donated sperm to make me. Not that I knew who he was or where he came from. My mom had been stunning when she was younger, but now the evidence of her hard life lined her face. Her hair had some silver in it and the bright in her eyes had long since gone. She was still beautiful to me, though, always would be.

Her smile was wide and warm when she saw me. She tried to get up, but was too unsteady and sat back down.

“You hungry, Ma? How about I make us some breakfast?” She forgot to eat a lot. I had someone that delivered her evening meals, but she was supposed of take care of breakfast and lunch herself. I often got here to find she hadn’t touched the food in the fridge or eaten the dinners they’d bought her.

I walked around and dropped a kiss to the top of her head and she patted my cheek.

“I’m fine.” She took a sip of what looked like coffee, but was probably fifty percent vodka. We’d tried rehab more times than I could count. It never worked. She’d given up, on herself, on any kind of future to look forward to. So I did my best to make her life bearable, to keep her safe, to be there for her. “I was hoping you’d stop by today,” she said. “You haven’t been to see me in a while.”

I started pulling pans out to make bacon and eggs for us both. “I stopped by yesterday, Mom.”

“Did you?” She waved a hand, dismissing my words. “Anyway, I’ve missed you.”

“You know you can call me anytime, right? If you need something, or you just want to check in, use the phone I got you.”

She took a sip of her drink. “It won’t work. I think I broke it.”

I grabbed eggs and bacon from the fridge, taking her mug away from her as I passed, and poured her a fresh drink, minus the vodka. I put it down in front of her, then opened the junk drawer. Sure enough, the phone was in there. I pulled it along with the charger out, plugged it in, and carried on cooking. “It’s not broken. You gotta remember to charge the battery.”

She grinned a self-deprecating grin. “I’m such an idiot. You must think I’m so stupid.”

I fucking hated it when she talked about herself like that, but she’d had those ugly words hammered into her as a kid, then by the Johns that had used her for her body, and now she believed it. “You’re not stupid. I’ll get Joan to remind you when she brings dinner from now on, so you won’t forget.”

“Okay, baby.”

She hummed to herself while I cooked. If she wasn’t talking, she was humming or singing. It was a way to drown out the noise, the memories, she’d told me once.

If my minds quiet, it creeps in, the bad stuff, the memories. Music keeps them out.

She was a child abuse survivor, had been used and hurt in so many ways, ways I couldn’t even imagine, but she’d never let what she’d been through in her life destroy her beautiful heart. I don’t know how she did it, how she got through that shit, but my mother had shown me nothing but love growing up, even when the ghosts haunting her had threatened to break her completely. To some, what I’d grown up in . . . well, let’s just say, Celeste Malik wouldn’t have gotten any Mother of the Year trophies, but she’d done the only thing she knew how to do. Survive. The frail woman sitting at that kitchen table was my fucking hero. And as soon as I’d gotten old enough, I’d promised to take care of her like she had me. I would have robbed, fought . . . killed, to get her off the streets.

I had.

The memory of that day, when I could finally do that for her, was as clear in my mind as if it was yesterday.